Town Square

Orinda councilman Steve Glazer is leading the way in fundraising in his bid for a seat in State Assembly's district 16. Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti and Danville Mayor Newell Arnerich are trailing by at least $100,000.

Posted by FanDanville
a resident of Danville
on Aug 8, 2013 at 8:55 am

Wow! Catherine Baker looks like an excellent candidate with a high level of skills--a background with legal/business experience and not just pure politics.
Nice to have a decent choice for once. (I've seen what...and how...these "Mayors" have produced in their towns.)

Not surprising that Arnerich lists housing developers in his contributors list. This guy is "bought and paid for by the developers" ! Going to be extremely hard for him to get votes from the citizens of his home town after his sellout to developers like K&B and Summerhill.

Posted by "outsider"
a resident of Danville
on Aug 8, 2013 at 10:46 am

Like Tony, I am a resident of an unincorporated area, in my case, unincorporated Danville. I support the SOS-Danville lawsuit demanding the legally-required public vote on the SummerHill project. I want the public to vote the project down because it will worsen the bottleneck of Diablo Road traffic that I and my family have to face every day.

Yet Mayor Arnerich claims that it doesn't matter what SummerHill Homes will do to me because I don't live within the official Town of Danville borders. Well now I get to show him that he needs to be concerned about me and my family because I sure as heck will not be voting for him for Assembly and I get to vote in that election!

Posted by Disgusted in Danville
a resident of Danville
on Aug 8, 2013 at 12:06 pm

Arnerich has sold out the Town to ABAG (Assoc. of Bay Area Governments, a regional, unelected bureaucracy with a board composed of elected officials from all over the nine-county Bay Area). He has been instrumental in setting the Town's policy to blindly and willingly accept the housing allocations given to Danville by ABAG, which require Danville to redesignate property for high-density development. While Piedmont, Ross, Corte Madera, and other cities have asked for reassessments of those mandates, Mr. "get-long" Arnerich didn't want to ruffle any feathers with regional bureaucrats at ABAG and other Bay Area government representatives on the ABAG board. He also didn't want to offend developers that want to build all that high-density housing.

ABAG just adopted the Plan Bay Area, which will result in more and worse housing allocations and less money for transportation improvements for Danville unless it goes along with ABAG.The Danville Council didn't even submit comments against it!

And to make matters worse, Newell's parting gift to Danville will be the horrible SummerHill Homes development for Magee Ranch Agricultural land, unless the SOS-Danville lawsuit wins and defeats Newell's efforts to ram it through without the required Measure S vote. Newell already ruined Elworthy Ranch with that hideous KB Homes mess.

BTW, Newell tricked voters into passing Measure S back in 2000 and not passing the citizens' Measure R. Now he is trying to trick them again and deny that even Measure S applies to the SummerHil project. All in a days work for Newell. Now he wants even more power!

No, Newell, I won't vote for you for Assembly, not even to rid Danville of you. But I would never, ever vote for you for Town Council, either. Recall, anyone?

Posted by concerned voter
a resident of Danville
on Aug 8, 2013 at 5:10 pm

What a dilemma our wonderful Mayor Arnerich has now given us. As you may recall, shortly after winning re-election last fall, he rewarded the voters with his announcement to run for State Assembly. Many who did not want him to win were initially happy with the news that he had decided to leave the Town. But, that would have been too easy. Should he lose at the State level his seat in Danville is considered a "safe" seat. This means that he will be with us for another two years past the 2014 election. And, based upon his dismal campaign finances to date, he is very likely to not win at the State level. So what do we do? A vote for him in the Assembly race would remove him from our Town Council, but that would be a very difficult box to check on the ballot. On the other hand, to not show him support to move on will leave us under his governance for an additional two years.

My choice is to let him raise as much money as he can, spend it on a losing campaign for State, and then in 2016 reward him with a no vote when he runs yet once again for our Town Council.

By the way let there be little doubt that when the 2014 campaign begins, to include the two seats on the Town Council held presently by Storer and Stepper, the current Town Council will most assuredly put on a full court press to not only re-elect both of those candidates, but they will also hedge their bets on the Arnerich seat by heavily endorsing and jointly campaigning with a hand-picked successor for his seat. This was their strategy and tactic in the last election and there is no reason to assume otherwise. Only in this way will they be able to continue their control of this town and manage with their five faces/one vote approach.

Posted by another concerned voter
a resident of Danville
on Aug 12, 2013 at 10:24 am

@concerned voter: I agree with everything you said. My question, however, is why the Council would want a third candidate in the next election, which will be only for Storer's and Stepper's seats?

If Arnerich loses the Assembly (the likely scenario), he will still have his Council seat. If he wins, the other four will be able to appoint someone of their choice to his seat, unless no one runs against Storer and Stepper, and there is no election for that seat (in which case Storer and Stepper become unelected appointed council members).

Posted by concerned voter
a resident of Danville
on Aug 12, 2013 at 1:17 pm

@another concerned voter:
Thanks for the comments. In reply; I think it is very likely that more that Storer and Stepper will run in 2014 and the entire current Council, including Arnerich, will want to cover their bets both ways. If Arnerich loses the Assembly run, then they have the ability to keep the current group intact. If he wins (agree very unlikely since he will currently be out spent by at least 5 to 1), then the Council will have two choices. First, they could not appoint anyone and manage with 4 until the 2016 election. This was the process used when Andersen moved off the Council to the county Supervisor seat. Second, and most likely, the 4 Council members could appoint a successor to Newell's seat. And what would be in their best interests in this scenario is to have a third candidate which they will endorse and campaign with during the 2014 election. They would hope that this third person will secure more votes than any other candidate in the race making the appointment an easy and defensible choice.
In either scenario, given the angst over the current Council, I feel the race will be contested with many candidates. This will force both Storer and Stepper to run.
Hope this is clear.

Defeat Arnerich---he is another libTARD loser screwing with Danville. In ABAG and MTC pockets along with developers. Then toss his two-faced butt out along with his dirty cronies on the current council.

Posted by follow the $$$$
a resident of Danville
on Aug 18, 2013 at 3:39 pm

Could someone please get Arnerich's donor list and put it on the Express? I couldn't find it on the web. There has got to be some reason he is acting against the interests of Danville residents.

And by the way, I really didn't appreciate Newell running for Danville council in November and then as soon as he won, announcing his bid for Assembly. With his incumbent's advantage, he beat out some really good Council challengers, whom we could have elected otherwise. Shame on you, Newell, for using the voters in that manner just to advance your own political career.

Posted by concered voter
a resident of Danville
on Aug 21, 2013 at 8:14 am

@follow the $$$$
Per your request, here is some key information regarding Newell's campaign finances. I will not detail the entire list of donors, but here are the highlights. If you are interested in more information, search the Secretary of State website and you will find all financial data reported for all candidates.

•Total raised to date is approx. $50,000.

•Of that total, Newell has "loaned" about $6,000 and his company (AD Architects) has contributed $4,100. So, 20% of his total to date is from himself. It is important to understand the distinction of the term loan. This allows him to return any unspent campaign funds to himself once the election is concluded. In other words, he spends all other's money first and his own last.

•By contrast, Steve Glazer has raised nearly $240,000 and has only contributed, not loaned, less than $1,000 of his own money.

•As expected, many of Newell's donors are building industry related. $6,800 came from a combination of Braddock & Logan, Davidon Homes, Ponderosa Homes, Signature Homes, Sunset Development and Sid Corrie.

•One very interesting donation came from "Storer for Council 2010" at a level of $1,000. The fact that Storer is supporting Newell is of no surprise, but the source of the donation is curious to say the least. Storer ran his campaign for council nearly 4 years ago and apparently retained excess funds in that account to be able to make this donation. Not sure what the rules are for political campaign funds, but it is strange that money given Storer has been redirected many years later to benefit Newell.

•The only other donation of significance is one for $4,100 from an Architect Political Action Committee out of Sacramento.

•Newell has spent $10,000 out of his total of $50,000 already to Thomas Daly- a political campaign consultant. Again, by contrast, Steve Glazer has only spent $3,000 of his campaign purse.